Islam - Its Meaning for Modern Man — Page 74
74 the digging of the trench and were divided into groups for digging and clearing the trench in sections. Even the women co-operated and helped relieve the men of such tasks as they could suitably perform. The total length of the trench was about a mile. It was scarcely ready before the Confederate army arrived in front of Medina. They were amazed to find their entry into the town barred by the trench, which was for them a novel spectacle. The Meccans made camp short of the trench and a state of siege began. Continuous attempts to cross the trench were repulsed. The fighting was not severe and there was little loss of life, though the strain on the Muslims was heavy and sustained. The Prophet had ordered the women and children under fifteen years of age away from the trench. This left him with about twelve hundred men to guard the trench and to oppose the entry of the Confederates into the town. The Muslims’ desperate resistance was based on the realisation that once the enemy gained a footing on their side of the trench it would mean the end of everything: neither man, woman, nor child would be spared and the Muslim quarters of Medina would be utterly destroyed. The Confederates, finding the trench a formidable obstacle to their advance into the town, began to consider other means of gaining their objective. Through Huyai bin Akhtab, chief of one of